


Delayed Confrontation

by Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Green Arrow
Genre: M/M, New Year's Resolutions, Protectiveness, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-05
Updated: 2008-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Oliver finds out about Connor and Eddie</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delayed Confrontation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Re_White](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Re_White/gifts).



> Yuletide Import Version: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1631123

"I said to keep your eyes on my boy, not your filthy paws!"

The roar of one Oliver Jonas Queen, formerly and currently the Emerald Archer of Star City, was the only warning Eddie got. With the peace of the ashram already shattered, both from that roar and the resoundingly solid punch of the irate father, there were no holds barred to the former spook in this fight.

"Did keep my eyes on him. Decided I liked what I was seeing." He only barely kept the smile he was feeling from translating to a smirk.

And it also might not have been the smartest thing ever to say, but where the Green Arrows were concerned, Eddie Fyres had never been the smartest of the bunch.

That was something he'd have ample time to consider upon waking back up from the last of Ollie's punches.

`~`~`~`~`

Eddie cracked his eyes open to find himself lying in his bunk, with Connor staring down at him.

"He doesn't understand."

"Connor, your dad never has understood the way people really work. I've used that against him for years." Eddie sat up slowly, looking at the young man that was the main reason for him still hanging around. All the things he had been and done in his life were nothing compared to what life with Connor Hawke had been. Plenty of trouble to get into, plenty of things to enjoy, especially where it involved 'teaching' Connor the ways of the world.

The punch had been well worth it, since Connor was still here with him.

"It does not make him right in this."

Eddie smiled, then winced as he truly felt the bruising. "Damn, he's learned to throw like that bird of his." The older man then shook his head. "Ollie's heart was in the right place, but you nailed it. He doesn't, and won't, understand us."

Connor nodded slowly. "No, but it does not change that we are together."

Eddie decided that would have to do. He did enjoy having Ollie as a friend, but Connor...Connor made it worthwhile to get up in the mornings.

`~`~`~`~`

Eddie had to admit that when it all first started, he'd never expected it to go quite the way it had. Tagging along with Connor and Ollie, when Ollie was damn set on getting himself killed and no one could put his brakes on for him, had led to the tight bond between Eddie and Connor.

Falling into bed with the clean-cut, too controlled kid had not been on his agenda. That only came when the grief and frustration hit Connor hard, one night after the visit to Dinah, to tell her that Ollie had finally gotten himself killed.

Eddie still wished he'd gone on that visit. He'd known Dinah, at least a little, and might have helped her see that Ollie had been dead a while. Of course, the bird had probably already known that. Not much had slipped past her, even if she'd walked away from Ollie a long while before the end.

Finding Connor practicing his martial arts with more viciousness than Eddie had ever witnessed had opened Eddie's eyes to just how much the kid had really wanted some kind of acknowledgment. Ollie, damn his hide, had been too lost grieving that damn Lantern's fall from grace, to see the obvious.

When Eddie had laid a hand on Connor's shoulder, and the younger man had turned into him, he had really been at a loss. He wasn't much better at people than Ollie ever had been, but the pain in the kid had torn at him. He felt responsible for him in some ways, and he'd tried to talk Connor around.

Somewhere in the middle of talking, there had been a lot more touching than damn well necessary. But Eddie had found he didn't mind, and waking up to see Connor at peace, sleeping beside him, had twisted something in his guts.

He was old enough to be the kid's dad and then some, but it really never hit him that way. What it had done was open Eddie's heart up to admitting the kid meant a hell of a lot to him. And he'd stayed doggedly in the life of this kid that was so intent about living up to the legend of his father, without ever truly realizing just how flawed a man Ollie had been.

Eddie had tried, sometimes with subtlety and sometimes bluntly, to make Connor see the truth of the world. It hadn't quite worked the way he'd expected it to. Connor's innate goodness and rosier view of the world had tempered Eddie's cynicism.

Together, they made a pair to be reckoned with, and Dinah herself had given a discreet warning to Eddie when they'd met in Japan.

//"Don't hurt him, Eddie, or I'll have your hide."// Eddie knew without a doubt she'd meant it. The woman he'd known in Seattle had hard edges, and could be fierce in protecting Ollie's legacy.

Now, Ollie was back, and Eddie really had wondered how long it was going to take for the truth to come out. Now he had that answer.

`~`~`~`~`

Eddie slid into the booth opposite the man that had all but broken his jaw three days before, and shrugged. Ollie was still steamed, but Eddie could see Connor had been working at him.

"That's my son."

"He's the only person I give a damn about."

The two men had a brief stare down, looking for signs of how this would turn out.

"I don't like it."

"Then ignore it. You want your son around, I don't have to be in the picture. But he's going to come home to me, each and every time."

Ollie's jaw clenched. "You seem sure of yourself, Fyres."

"It's because I know truth when I feel it." Eddie lit a cigarette, and blew the smoke out casually. "So?"

"His choice. I'll have to deal." Ollie drained his coffee. "You hurt him..."

"Not going to happen. But the same goes for you, Queen. You hurt him...and you've got even more power to do it...and you will pay for it."

They matched glares again, and decided to leave it at that.


End file.
